United States Constitution

Even though most people believe that the jury system is a necessity to having a fair trial, I believe the exact opposite. I believe that the jury is made up of 12 people that have no clue what they are even doing there. Ben Shapiro, a writer from The Patriot Post once wrote,” The problem with juries is that they are generally composed of the 12 people stupid enough to get out of jury duty. ” I say that if we want to keep the jury system around, we have to make improvement to it. We need to educate the American citizen about what they do at jury duty, instead of them just getting there and then having no idea what to do.

We cannot just expect them to know, we have to tell them. American jurist seem to think that when they are called to have jury duty that it is going to be like all of those law shows they see on television, but that is never the case. According to Jennifer Dearborn, the writer of the web article “The case of Casey Anthon; Defending the American Jury System” from the Law Record, in the shows the person that has committed the crime is always found and put in jail, which is not always true in real life. This is known as the CSI affect.

Another way that people can be wrong about the jury system trial process is that in a normal case, there wouldn’t be television cameras or microphones, the trial would happen and it would be done with. The problem with the Casey Anthony trial is that it was a “Show Trial”. According to the article “Should We Abolish the Jury System? ” by Ben Shapiro, an American conservative political commentator, radio talk show host, attorney, and media consultant, wrote, The phase ‘Show Trial’ now means something different- it means a trial that is a show. That’s precisely what O. J. and Casey Anthony were about.

Every juror expects to see Sam Waterston get up and deliver opening remarks, and damned if the court system won’t do its best to provide that entertainment. The provisions of the Constitution that requires a public trial is now used to ensure that trials become media circuses There should be no need that court cases should be publicity magnets. The case gets blown out of proportion and it’s not treated like any normal or real case would be. We need to revise the Constitution if ever a big case gets turned into a “show trial” because we will never get anything achieved in this country if that trend continues.

Some say that the jury system works because the jurists are people that don’t know each other and they can really come up with an answer and not be judged on what they say but that is never the case. In the article named “Groupthink” written, David McRaney said, “Conformity, rationalism, stereotyping, and delusion of grandeur- they all come out to play and no one is willing to fight them back into hell because it might lead to abandoning the plan or a nasty argument. ” In most cases when a group of strangers are together, most of the people won’t speak their minds because they don’t feel comfortable talking with strangers.

In result of this the group is more likely to come up with a false conclusion. Also another reason why people are so self conscious and self opinionated is because non jury members often judge the jury members on the decision that the jury make but we have to remember that they don’t see the news like we do they aren’t allowed. According to “The Case of Casey Anthony: Defending the American Jury System” by Jennifer Dearborn, a writer for the Law Record wrote, We did not all listen closely to what each witness said nor were we in the privileged position of being able to interpret the body language and expressions of each witness.

Instead, we rely on the media for our information. American cannot trust that the media presented all the relevant information properly or objectively. The media portrays a person and a case in a light that attracts viewers and attention; it does not necessarily reflect the truth We have made up opinions of a person based on what we have seen and heard on television. We are not personal there to see the case, so who are we to judge the jury when maybe they are the right ones after all? They went through the case not seeing the news and gaining an opinion on anyone in that court room.